The Massachusetts Slave Trade.

same as that of the earlier article: he concludes that "The Whites Strengthens and Peoples the Country, others do not."¹
The exaction of duties for Negroes "of what age soever" was sometimes considered grievous. In 1707 David Jeffries Merchant sent a petition to the House of Representatives, "Praying an Abatement of the Duty for four small Negro Children Imported." The discriminating representatives compromised by ordering "That the Sum of ffour Pounds be Abated to the Petitioner in regard one of the said Negros was a Sucking Child."²
A few years later the commissioner of impost complains that several Indian and negro slaves have been imported into the province, "of which no Entry has been made with him, nor the Duty for them paid, contrary to the Law in that case made and provided and in Elusion thereof."³ Evasions were more and more frequent and in 1728 the first act was strengthened by requiring from the masters of the vessels, on oath, an account of the slaves brought in, with a penalty of £100 for refusal to comply or for a false list. It was also provided that the unfortunate owners of such negroes as should "dye" within twelve months after importation should be recompensed in some sort by the refunding of the duty they had paid.⁴ This seems to have been evaded also, for a third act, in January of 1738, states that "the Payment of the Duty of Four Pounds per Head laid upon Negros imported into this Province is often Evaded, by bringing them in, in a Clandestine Manner; for Remedy whereof" the penalties of 1728 were reasserted and declared in force for ten years.⁵
For a quarter of a century after this act there is almost no agitation on the subject, except that in 1755 the town of Salem sent a petition to the General Court against the importation of Negroes.⁶ "If there was a prevailing public sentiment against slavery in Massachusetts — as has been constantly claimed of late," wrote Moore in 1866,⁷ "the people of that day, far less demonstrative than their descendants, had an extraordinary way of not showing it." Hutchinson, in his history of Massachusetts, published in 1764, indicates a mild sort of opposition when he says,⁸ "Some judicious persons are of opinion that the permission of slavery has been a publick mischief."
"About the time of the Stamp Act," wrote Samuel Dexter, a prominent Boston merchant in 1795,¹⁰ "what before were only slight scruples in the minds of conscientious persons became serious doubts, and, with a considerable number, ripened into a firm persuasion that the slave trade was malum in se. Pieces against it appeared in newspapers, and some pamphlets were written."
In 1766 Boston instructed her representatives to "move for a law, to prohibit the importation and purchasing of slaves for the future,¹¹ This instruction was repeated the next year. A bill for preventing importation was introduced into the Legislature in 1767, but it was dropped. Within the next few years many towns instructed their representatives to use their influence for the abolition of slavery, and in 1771 a bill prohibiting importation was actually passed, but it was vetoed by Governor Hutchinson¹² Dr. Belknap says¹³ that the governor was acting in accordance with instructions received from England, but it is evident from one of Hutchinson's letters that the home government had not at that time expressed itself definitely on this point

¹ Weeden, II, 456.
² Mass. Arch., LXXXI, 612.
³ Mass. Arch., LXXXI, 716.
⁴ Acts and Resolves, II, 517.
⁵ Mass. Arch., IX, 223.
⁶ Moore, p. 109.
⁷ P. 110.
⁸ Vol. I, p. 444.
⁹ 5 Mass. Hist. Coll., III, 385.
¹⁰ Boston Town Records, 1758-1769, May 26, 1766.
¹¹ Ibid., March 16, 1767.
¹² Du Bois, pp. 31, 32.
¹³ I Mass. Hist. Coll., IV, 202.

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